Thunderbolts: A Microcosm of the Church

Ok, so I have seen this movie twice and I laughed and cried both times. I even cosplayed with some friends during my first viewing. Though not the best Marvel movie it has quickly become one of my favorites. It has been showing for a while so sadly I missed my opportunity to write a film review, so I will have to settle for discussing some of the reason why I enjoyed this film.

Honestly, no Marvel film has impacted me on such a personal level before. Sure, they tickled my geekiness and gave me hours of conversational topics to debate with others in my nerd tribe, but none of them reached into my soul like this did. Its message was simple and yet also so profoundly life changing for me.

This is why I love art. God gave creativity to us so we can use our talents to impact the rest of the world. Since the very beginning man has been using art to convey thoughts, ideas and feelings. Art can help people heal, deal with grief, and inspire them. It does far more than just entertain. This film, for me, was like that.

Now, the friends I went with were not impacted as much as I was. Two of them even got a little annoyed with me about how I always had to “find a message in everything.” For them, it was simply a movie they enjoyed and nothing more. Better then most of the recent Marvel offerings, but nothing truly special and that’s ok. Art is subjective and it affects everyone differently.

Unlike DC’s Suicide Squad which is their counterpart to Marvel’s Thunderbolts, this film doesn’t glory in the over the top extremeness of the character’s flaws, but rather delves into the struggles that led them to become who they are. Yes, both are about villains who become heroes, but in Suicide Squad they are forced into it, whereas here they choose to be. These fundamental differences and the motives for choosing the heroes path is why Thunderbolts is a far better film then both of the Suicide Squad movies.

As a Christian however, I found it impossible to not be moved by this film. It is about finding hope during despair, overcoming loneliness through community, overcoming our failures and not allowing them to become our identity, and redemption. I think any Christian would agree this is right up our alley. It is the very heart of the gospel we believe and preach.

Throughout the last phase Marvel was having Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character Valentina Allegra De ’Fontaine gather together all of the misfits of the past few films as her own personal squad. She manipulated them into doing her black-ops dirty work covering up the illegal activity she was engaged in as the head of the CIA. Seeing them as nothing more than an expendable resource, she manipulates them by using their desire to find redemption for their mistakes in life. Eventually they become the last bit of evidence she needs to dispose of and she sends them to a secret location with orders to kill each other.

Just like us, they are lost and trying to find meaning and worth in all of the wrong things, and everything they try leads them farther and farther away from the very thing they are seeking. Florence Pough’s character Yelena Belova is the main medium the film uses to show this. She is disillusioned and lost and goes to her adoptive father David Harbor’s character Red Guardian for help. Sound familiar? How many people do we encounter daily who feel like that? How many of us do even right now?

Proverbs 14:12: There is a way that seems right to a man,But its end is the way of death.

It is so easy to get lost in trying to find your way in this life without God. Doing so, however, will always lead to failure, death and destruction. This is what humans tend to do and also what the Thunderbolts are doing. It leads them to hopelessness and failure just like it leads us. They were looking for purpose and failing to find it.

They all manage to not kill each other and even form a tentative alliance in order to escape the predicament they are in. Enter Bob. Bob is a guy who happens to show up in the warehouse with them. No one has any idea how he got there and it spooks them. Yolena, however, instantly takes a liking to to him because she senses he is just as lost as she is.

Even though she herself is wrestling with the same issues, she instinctively lays aside her own problems to try to help him. As the danger rises, they all start trying to help him, even US Agent Wyatt Russell’s character who is actually a mean and bitter failed Captain America. As the bullets start to fly it becomes increasingly harder for Yolena to keep him safe.

Bob, seeing how hard these people he just met are trying to keep him alive, especially Yolena decides to use himself as a distraction so the others can escape. He reaches past his hopelessness and feelings of self loathing to find away to help his new friends and the bad guys try to kill him for it. He, of course, was in the warehouse because he was a failed super soldier experiment they thought had died, and he survives and is taken by Valentina to a facility in NYC where she can use him to further her own gains.

Sin, despite our good intentions, will always lead to place where we are being used up and then discarded. It can never produce true worth and good in the world. Valentina will find this out when all of her plans back fire and Bob becomes a villain instead of a hero. How many times have we seen people with the best intensions perform the vilest of evils? Just like Valentina, sin and the way of the world always lead to emptiness in the end.

Ecclesiastes 1:2: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

This last statement is exactly what ends up being the villain of the film. The void which is in everyone's heart when they realize, despite their best efforts, everything they do in their own strength leads to failure. Bob has a dark side, it is called the void. it is the emptiness in him that he can not fill. The darkness that led him to drug addiction and self destruction and this void now has the power to literally suck everyone else into it. Wow, so much like our lives. It isn’t just us we hurt in our sin but all those around us.

After their escape Yolena’s father the Red Guardian shows up to help them. He is excited because he feels that together they can become something more. They can be heroes. None of them can see it yet and they kind of brush him off until Bucky comes and captures them. He wants to use them to testify against Valentina so he can impeach her and arrest her. They try to warn him that she has Bob and due to his instability he is a danger. He decides to lead them as a team because he can identify with them having once been just like them.

Bucky is the church. Not perfect, has a lot of baggage and was even a villain. Like us who are saved through Jesus, he was saved and then reborn through the love of his friend Steve Rodgers Captain America. Red Guardian is the father figure in the faith who has been where you are and is trying to help you see the way forward. He provides strength and encouragement and believes in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. Thank God for people like this in the church!

1 Peter 4:10:“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms”2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Thanks to Bucky and Red Guardian they are starting to believe they can be something more and they go to New York, not to stop Valentina but to help their friend Bob. Their messed up friend who was thrown out by Valentina when she thought he was worthless. Their friend who was a drug addict who hurt those he loved in his pain.

I don’t think I need to say much about this. The very heart of Jesus is salvation. It is about sacrificing ones self to save others. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be redeemed. Not just the “good ones”, but everyone, no matter how much of a failure they are.

Romans 5:6: For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

They fail to save Bob and he hurts them even though he doesn’t necessarily want to. Valentina realizes she can’t control him and activates the bomb in his head which is her fail safe. Yolena is heart broken and in her despair and hurt she says some really terrible things to the others. I can absolutely relate to this and I am sure you can too. This is what happens when we allow the hurt and failure to rule our actions.

Their inability to save Bob reenforces the feelings of failure and worthlessness they all have. They all tried and failed yet again. The voice in her head screams to her that none of them will ever be anything more than worthless failures. Sound like what the voices in your mind say? It sure sounds like the thoughts that go through mine.

The Red Guardian chases after Yolena and helps her see that she is not worthless that she doesn’t have to be defined by her failure. He believes in her and still sees her as his precious daughter and the little girl who used to always light up the room. His love draws her out of her own darkness and back to the light.

This is what God does for us and how the Father views all of us. He sees who we can be, who He always meant for us to be. He changes us and then uses us to help change others. Someone who knows how much God has forgiven them will always be able to see past the sin to the person. One of the greatest things we can learn to do is to see others the way Jesus sees them. After all those of us who have been forgiven of much love much.

Luke 7:44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

At this moment Bob becomes the void and destroys the new Avengers tower raining debris down upon the helpless citizens of New York City. Without thinking, all of the Thunderbolts run into the fray and start saving people. They stop letting their past define what they will do and become something more. They become heroes.

They are still hurting and still wrestling with their own issues, but they are no longer held back by it. They go from being inward focused people locked up by their past to outward focused people who lay that aside to help those in need around them. Again, this is the very center of what it means to be a Christian and it is what Jesus has called all of us to do. He takes failed, broken people and through his love and power turns them into what he always intended them to be, heroes like Him.

They have finally found purpose and have saved many, but it is not enough. The Void is literally turning people into shadows, trapping them in a place where they are having to relive over and over their worst failures. Sound familiar? Sound like what the enemy does to people?

Everyone is subject to the curse of being trapped in our worst moments. After all, the world tells us this daily by always highlighting the worst things man does. What is the saying, you will never be more than your worst mistake. This is a demonic lie that has burrowed into the modern psyche like a parasite. Cancel culture is one symptom of this underlying sickness.

All of our beliefs about ourself and life get filtered through the lens of these failures and it becomes impossible for us to rise above them. Everything we experience and every action we take is tainted by them. They become our identity and define our lives. Just like in the world redemption, forgiveness and even hope get lost and become impossibilities to our minds.

Unable to simply leave Bob in his despair, Yolena runs into the Void. She refuses to give up on him even though she feels powerless to help him. She faces her greatest failure and it is terrible. she is forced to relive it over and over until she finally refuses to allow it define her and she breaks through. She plows through layers of horrible memories and events until she reaches Bob.

He is in a place where he has excepted that he is worthless and has stayed there. Unable to give up on him, she lifts him out of his complacent despair. The Void, however, will not let them go so easily.

It actively begins to try to destroy them both. This is when the others show up. Unbeknownst to her she inspired the others and they followed her into the darkness and together they confront the void .

Bob begins to give in to his anger and turns from despair to violence. Realizing this is not the way either, Yolena and the others come around Bob and help him heal. It is the only way to truly overcome the void. Bob can never do it alone, he needs the love and support of others. He needs his friends.

Just like Bob, we need each other. Not only do we need Jesus to come and heal us and forgive us, we need the support of our brothers and sisters. Jesus literally came, died and then resurrected to set us free from the never ending cycle of sin and destruction.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

No one in life can do this on their own and this is why God designed the church. It is one of the primary functions for having a physical church on the earth. We all need our own spiritual personal relationship with Jesus, but he gave us each other so we wouldn’t have to walk this journey alone. So we could support and protect each other and be the hand of Jesus to the world. Paul mentions this in Hebrews 10:25 when he states.

25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

I hope this post inspires you and that it encourages you to go see Thunderbolts. I have not been impressed with Disney over the last few years and their ideological approach to entertainment, but with Thunderbolts they got it right. It is an entertaining film devoid of politics with a great message that is applicable to everyone. Especially those of us who follow Jesus.

J

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For your enjoyment and as proof I really did dress up, here are a few pictures of me as the Red Guardian.